


until your name's next to mine

by winteryknights (BlackcatNamedlucky)



Series: the grave and the garden [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Universe Alteration, but what if i made the lesbians be happy for once, i know they set quynh up to be the antagonist, it only starts to diverge from canon at the end, which is the part at which i went
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25516462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackcatNamedlucky/pseuds/winteryknights
Summary: Andromache sees a woman in her dreams.Flashes of her, anyways. Loose robing blowing around her legs, a hand gripped around a staff, her head tilted up towards a golden sunrise, lips curved in a slight smile that looks like it comes so easy to her that Andromache aches at the sight.Sometimes she catches herself longing for sleep, just for the sight of her again.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Series: the grave and the garden [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1852273
Comments: 15
Kudos: 144





	until your name's next to mine

_Andromache sees a woman in her dreams._

_Flashes of her, anyways. Loose robing blowing around her legs, a hand gripped around a staff, her head tilted up towards a golden sunrise, lips curved in a slight smile that looks like it comes so easy to her that Andromache aches at the sight._

_Sometimes she catches herself longing for sleep, just for the sight of her again._

~

It was the death of a good friend, one of the only people she’d been able to call that in a long while, that made Andromache realize that she needed to leave.

It shouldn’t have happened. It should never have happened. The worship, the idolatry that followed her, it only brought violence. Needless death. Inordinate pain.

She couldn’t bear that weight on her shoulders anymore.

~

When she set out, she couldn’t get the feeling of his blood off her skin. No matter how many times she’d plunged herself in the icy flow of rivers, how many soaking rags she’d dragged over her arms and chest and stomach, how much grit and grime replaced it, the feeling clung. It prickled and itched and urged her to rend her own flesh in vitriolic mockery, knowing the wound would never last, knowing the feeling of her own blood washing over her skin could never replace the guilt she would carry with her forever.

~

_But at night she sleeps, and the feeling fades, replaced with the white-gold glow of the sun burning above a vast expanse of sand-soaked hills and the image of a world-weary woman who seems to never lose her will, her spirit._

_Andromache envies her strength._

~

Andromache had no path when she left, no known end to her journey, only a desired one.

That woman, only seen in pieces but Andromache felt like she knew her already, could spot her in a crowd, on a battlefield, amongst a thousand other women who looked identical, she would know the one she dreamt of.

She was different.

Always seen walking, in her dreams, like the two of them were coming together, drawn by some unknowable force, unseen, unheard, just a thread spanning between them, ever slacking as they grew nearer.

Andromache wished she could just find her already.

All she longed for was a familiar face. To never know this bone-deep loneliness again.

~

_Her dream is different tonight._

_Still of the same woman, but she is no longer walking, no longer holding her head up high._

_Instead, she is sleeping, hair matted with fine sand, curled in on herself as though she’s trying to cling to something that’s not there with her._

_Andromache hopes she is only sleeping._

~

When her travels led her to a wide desert, Andromache knew she was close to the end.

A part of her is buzzing, thrilled, nigh disbelieving that maybe this wasn’t a fool’s errand after all.

The other part is sick with fear that maybe it was.

A fear quelled when she found her, sleeping in the sand, curled in on herself as though trying to cling to something not with her.

She didn’t need to know the language the woman spoke to know that, when she sees Andromache, the first words out of her mouth are “I have seen you in my dreams”.

~

She learned her name as Quynh, as they fumbled through stilted lessons in each other’s mother tongue. Only enough to call out to each other in times of need. They needed little else to communicate, soft touches and steady gazes enough of a language for them.

~

She falls asleep in this woman’s arms now, doesn’t need to dream of the curve of her smile or the sparkle in her eye to see it.

~

There is another who joins them as they make their way through the world, using their gift to aid those who fight for a just cause.

He leaves them too soon after and Andromache knows that his will join the blood that she cannot wash away.

But, just like it had done before, she figures that time will at least lessen its stain.

~

_In her dreams she sees the faces of two men, pitted against each other, swords clashed in a spray of sparks._

_There is so much anger in their features._

_An anger so tired she doesn’t know how its well hasn’t dried by now._

_She dreads sleep now, knowing the hatred she’ll face when she succumbs to it._

~

They set out to find the men, the nightmares too disturbing to face any longer, hoping that they will end if they meet. Hoping they have not killed each other by now, wondering if it’s even possible.

~

When they do, there is none of the anger that Andromache dreamed about for so long, none of the hate.

They find the men in a cave carved out of a hillside by nature, asleep in an embrace that makes Andromache fill with warmth at the memory of how Quynh’s arms wrap around her in the same way when they lay down to rest.

A glance at the other woman confirms she agrees with her intentions to leave them until they wake, but as they turn to go she notices that one of them already has, alerted by the scraping of a sword across the rocks that pepper the cave floor, and she sees that one of the men has pulled himself away from the chest of the other, shaggy brown hair falling over wild eyes, filled with a fierce determination that she recognizes from her dreams, as he steps forward, settling into a defensive stance, making his own body into a shield.

He asks who they are in a harsh, hissed whisper, in a language that Andromache knows but cannot name, hand around the hilt of his sword in a loose sort of way that might be interpreted as casual to anyone who had never seen combat.

Andromache slowly takes the axe strapped to her back, eyes staying on the man and watching him tense as she kneels down, not relaxing until she’s laid the weapon at her feet and straightened, hands held out in front of her in a placating gesture, noting that Quynh has done the same.

Truthfully, she doesn’t know what to say. She could describe the dreams, say that she had seen him before, that she recognized him, knew him, but then, would she believe that if their positions were switched?

She could simply give their names, say they are friends, allies of these two men they have never met, but who’s to say that he will care? She has seen this man’s anger. She cannot be sure that she can trust his reaction.

They don’t have to find out, the other man has risen, unnoticed, coming up behind the one facing them down and whispering something to him.

He lets his sword fall to the ground.

~*~

Nicolò and Yusuf had been so close to being on time, the day it happened. So close to freeing both of them from the clutches of the witchfinders.

Had they been half an hour earlier—

Andromache tries not to blame them.

Eventually, she succeeds.

~

_Nightmares torment her sleep as she’s forced to watch Quynh drown, time and again, trapped in that fucking coffin, lost to the clutches of the sea._

~

The trail goes cold throughout the centuries, the rumors fade, and Andromache has to face the reality that she won’t be able to keep the promise she gave so long ago.

It nearly kills her.

~

_In her dreams, she sees a man wracked by grief, destroying the room around him until all that there is left for him to do is sit in the middle of the chaos he has sown and sob._

_She feels his pain deep in her own chest._

~

When they find Sebastien, he’s a lost wanderer, desperate for connection, for a purpose.

For distraction.

Andromache sympathizes.

A part of her has felt so alone for so long that finding a kindred soul seems a miracle in its own right.

~*~

She catches wind of a series of a sea captain’s diaries that recently went on display at a museum in England. Diaries that detail the story of a woman who couldn’t die. A woman the captain’s crew was charged with doing away with.

For the first time in centuries, Andromache feels hope.

~

_In her dreams, she feels Quynh’s arms wrapped around her, like a safety net. One she hadn’t been able to provide herself._

~

She won’t do it without Sebastien.

It may have been a bit unfair, pulling the mortality card, but it (and, she won’t lie, a little help convincing Yusuf and Nicolò from Nile) landed them at his doorstep in a tenth of the time they had given him, with an armful of nautical maps to spread out over his kitchen table and the keys to a rented boat at the nearest marina to his home.

~

Sebastien is the first one to volunteer for the dive. Andromache knows his desperation to apologize, has felt her own burning a hole in her heart for too many centuries. She knows how genuine he is in his remorse.

When he returns, it’s with a woman in his arms.

She gasps for breath as they break the ocean’s surface and, for the first time in 500 years, oxygen fills her lungs.

~

After so long apart, Andromache falls asleep with Quynh’s arms around her again, and once again feels safe.

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up this morning with an itch to write and got this baby out in a few hours, mostly stream-of-consciousness style. Hope you enjoyed it!  
> If you did, leaving a kudos or comment would seal a contract stating my undying loyalty to your bloodline.  
> If you want to chat you can find my main tumblr at [the-sneering-menagerie](https://the-sneering-menagerie.tumblr.com) or my writing blog at [redking-scripting](https://redking-scripting.tumblr.com)


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